Blog Question: Do Scientologists believe that their ancestors were clams?

Question:
Operation ClamBake. Do you know why it’s called ClamBake?

Answer:
Yes, I know why it is called ClamBake. Not because Hubbard said that humans evolved from clams but because baking Scientologists is a nice imagination for one Scientology critic who in 1994/95 did the same which is being done now with Anonymous, i.e. turning on the mob on Scientology by spreading half-truths or outright disinformation. Literally clambake is a beach barbecue where clams are cooked on hot stones. Do you like the idea to burn Scientologists? I don’t, obviously.

But I think you meant something else.

Hubbard, just as many others, talks about the ancestry of living organisms to be amoebas or even mono cells. In a book called “A History of Man”1 he writes about the GENETIC evolution of organisms which are called “Genetic Entities” or GEs in the book. He notes that life went through various evolutionary stages and developed on parallel routes. A “clam” is “in the evolution chain which includes jellyfish, seaweed and some other forms” (p.45). Scientology belief is that living organisms are not just a bunch of chemicals but that any living organism is animated by a life force (”spirit”, “energy” there are many names for it, in Scientology it is “theta”) and that this life force has existed since time immemorial. So the life force animating a clam 30,000 BC could be the same animating you today. That does not mean my ancestor is a clam or that I believe it is.